wrestling / Video Reviews
Dunn’s Countdown to Survivor Series: Survivor Series 1993
Loading...Survivor Series ’93
by J.D. Dunn
Razor announces that “Mr. Perfect” can’t be there due to injury, so Randy Savage is replacing him. Razor and Martel start out in a rematch of their match for the vacant Intercontinental Title. Razor rolls through a crossbody for two and counters another crossbody to a Fallaway Slam. Adam Bomb (Bryan Clarke, aka “Wrath” in WCW or “the Nighstalker” in the NWA) tags in and shoves Razor around. He’s notable for being one of two guys who had their careers squashed by Kevin Nash in 1998 – the other being Goldberg. The model accidentally decks Harvey Whippleman on the outside, and the heels nearly come to blows. Things calm down, and the match continues with Bomb and Diesel destroying the Kid. Kid actually hits a headscissors on Diesel and tags to Savage who cleans house on everyone and whips Diesel and Bomb together. The Flying Elbow Drop finishes Big Daddy Cool at 10:19.
Martel jumps Savage from behind, and things calm down considerably. Heenan entertains himself by talking about how fun it is to screw people over and tells McMahon to try it sometime. Oh, don’t worry. Savage starts to dominate IRS. That brings out Crush, who turned on Savage and attacked him Raw a few weeks earlier. Savage gets distracted by Crush and rolled up by IRS to eliminate him at 16:45.
We follow Savage to the back as he looks for Crush, and when we come back, Janetty is getting hammered. Well, I think he came in hammered, hence his lack of involvement in the match, but you know what I mean. Martel misses a charge and posts himself, allowing Janetty to get out of trouble. Razor tags in and finishes IRS with the chokeslam and the Razor’s Edge at 19:34.
A big scrum erupts, and Irwin hits Ramon with his briefcase as Ramon going for another Edge on Martel. Ramon falls to the outside and gets counted out at 20:43.
Martel and Kid do a spiffy little sequence. Kid dropkicks Bomb to the floor and tries a tope, but Bomb catches him and slams him on the floor. Bomb shows he can fly too with a slingshot clothesline back inside. Janetty gets the hot tag and takes it to Martel. He and Kid doubleteam Martel, and Kid finishes Martel with a sunset flip at 35:48.
Bomb charges in, and Marty slingshots into his own sunset flip at 35:59. Solid stuff, but the eliminations are quite odd. ***1/2
Shawn picks a fight with Ross and Wayne Hart who are sitting at ringside. The Knights are Barry Horowitz (Red), Greg Valentine (Blue), and Jeff Gaylord (Black). I know the official line is that the Black Knight is Glen Jacobs (Kane), but this guy is A) too short and B) wrestles nothing like Jacobs who always wrestles the same whether he’s the Christmas Creature, the evil dentist, the truck driver, or the psycho hellspawn. Bruce starts with Shawn and does a nice rope sequence that sends Shawn in to the Red Knight. Shawn accidentally takes out the Black Knight with a high knee. The Harts dominate the Knights as the crowd starts to get bored. The problem is that the Knights can’t get in much offense without people recognizing their moveset, which works out fine for Horowitz because no one’s ever seen him get in an offensive move. Owen finishes the Black Knight with a missile dropkick at 10:48.
The Harts go to work on the Red Knight’s leg. Shawn’s team isolates Keith with a nice little sequence where Shawn slingshots into a splash on his arm. The heels work Keith’s arm, which shouldn’t be this boring, given the talent involved. A Rocket Launcher misses, and Bret gets the hot tag. He locks the Red Knight in the Sharpshooter for the win at 18:10.
Blue Knight drops an elbow on Bret. Hey, that looks very familiar! Too bad he doesn’t do that wind up and drop the forearm thing, or the Flair flop. He does, however, hit a headbutt to the gut. Owen and Bruce doubleteam the Blue Knight and Shawn Michaels. Shawn slips to the outside and accosts Stu, so Stu socks him one. Owen hits a pescado on Shawn and finishes the Blue Knight with the Sharpshooter at 23:47
Shawn tries to run because it’s a 4-on-1. Bret blocks his way, though, so Shawn hits Bruce with a superkick for two. Bret tags in and slingshots Shawn into the buckle for two. Shawn rakes his eyes, so Bret tags to Owen. Owen hits a nice belly-to-belly suplex but runs into Bret, who was standing on the apron and knocks him to the floor. Shawn schoolboys Owen at 27:15, making him the only Hart eliminated. He screams at Bret for being selfish and wonders aloud, “What about me?!” all the way to the back.
It’s still 3-on-1, so after a quick series of beatings from the Harts, Shawn runs to the back for the countout at 30:57. Way too long for this, and it didn’t even have a satisfying resolution. The only positive point is the planting of seeds for Owen’s heel turn. Owen returns to the ring to break up the celebration and to demand satisfaction from Bret. *
Here is a tremendous miscalculation by Vince and Corny. Not only is the crowd out of it after the boring Harts vs. Knights match, but they also have next to no idea who these guys are. The R&R had their prime seven years earlier in what might as well have been a different country, so the Northeast crowd doesn’t much care a whit about the match. That doesn’t stop them from going out there and putting on a sweet little old school NWA match. Ricky busts out a tope early, and the R&Rs do their series of great doubleteam maneuvers. Jim Ross explains that the Gibson and Morton use hand signals to talk to each other in the ring. After several minutes of the faces dominating, Pritchard hits a sitout powerbomb to take over. Ricky plays face-in-peril. Wait, let me pick myself up off the floor here. Del Ray hits a nice quebrada on Morton, and the Bodies show their cache of doubleteam maneuvers. The Veg-o-Matic only gets two, and Morton counters a powerbomb to a rana. He hits a double DDT to get out of trouble. Pritchard throws Morton over the top, and Gibson thinks they’ve won by disqualification (which it would be in Smokey Mountain). Instead, the Rock ‘n’ Rolls hit their double dropkick. Gibson falls on top, but Del Ray grabs Cornette’s racket and smashes Gibson’s brains in for the win at 13:42. Crowd was bored to tears, but the match was a nice throwback to mid-eighties NWA tag wrestling. ***3/4
The faces are all dressed as Doink the Clown because Doink was feuding with Bam Bam. The real Doink is actually absent, and I believe this is right around the time Matt Bourne stopped playing the character. Lots of comedy stuff as Luke bites Booger’s ass. Samu comes in and bites all the babyfaces balloons to make them sad, so Mo gives him a water balloon, and Samu is so started he gets rolled up at 3:00.
Luke gets isolated and squashed by Bastion Booger. Booger is hungry and wants a banana, though. That allows the Whackers to hit the battering ram, and Mabel finishes Booger with a legdrop at 6:01.
Fatu brings in part of a roast turkey and hits Luke over the head with it. DANGEROUUUUUUUUS! Mo comes in riding a scooter, but Bam Bam destroys it. Fatu hits a diving headbutt, but he too is fascinated by the banana. Butch fakes him out with an empty bucket and rolls up Fatu for the pin at 8:31.
That leaves Bam Bam in a 4-on-1. He winds up in there with Mabel and just bounces off on a shoulderblock. Mabel misses a charge, but Bigelow is distracted when Luke throws banana squeezin’s all over Luna. Mabel and Mo avalanche Bigelow in the corner, and Mabel wins with a legdrop at 10:57. Well, there’s your comedy match. Not particularly funny or anything, and the wrestling was, of course, horrible. Doink appears on the big screen (precursor to the Titantron) and acts really obnoxious. 1/2*
The heel are all evil furreners, except for Crush, who is an evil Hawaiian, but I’m guessing Vince thinks they might have been “in on” Pearl Harbor. Tatanka was supposed to be on the babyface team, but he wasn’t over and was injured by Borga (in the kayfabe sense). Rick hits Yoko with a series of shoulderblocks to send the big guy to the floor. Rick comes off the top into something sloppy and smashes his face into the canvas. That’s enough for Borga to get the pin at 5:04.
Scott overpowers Crush as Randy Savage tries to get down to the ring. A cadre of WWF officials holds him back, though. Crush drops Scott on the floor just to taunt Savage. Savage is dragged to the back but returns moments later to attack Crush in the aisle. They brawl back to the entrance where Crush is counted out at 11:35.
The heels jump Steiner right away and keep him in their corner. Luger gets the hot tag and drops an elbow on Jacques to eliminate him at 14:04.
For some reason, Lex makes Scott Steiner start the next fall with Ludwig Borga. Borga hits Scott with an avalanche and clotheslines him. Scott catches him going up and nearly eliminates him with a superplex, but Yoko makes the save. Scott tries a Frankensteiner on Yoko, which I would like to have seen, but Yoko hangs on to the ropes and drops a leg for the pin at 16:56.
Yoko and Borga take turns destroying Luger. Yoko misses a charge, though, allowing Taker to get the hot tag. Taker staggers Yoko but walks into a belly-to-belly suplex. Taker keeps sitting up, so Yoko legdrops his face and preps for the Banzai Drop. He hits the Drop but decides to go for a second one and the Taker avoids. Their brawl spills to the outside, and Taker and Zuna are counted out at 23:25.
That leaves Luger in there with a relatively fresh Borga. Borga gets two off a suplex. He goes for another one, but Luger counters to his own. They clothesline each other for a double KO. Luger rolls into a corner, but Corny and Johnny Polo have the ref distracted. Fuji hands Borga the salt bucket, and Borga knocks him out with it. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Luger hulks up and hits a lariat. Flying forearm finishes at 27:57. Luger celebrates with Santa Claus after the match. The Taker versus Yoko portion was the only thing the crowd was interested in. **
The 411: To show you how memorable everything on the card is, this is widely thought of as "the one where Owen turned." That's basically the only reason to pick up the tape. The crowd drops right out of it after the opening match and never comes back. The best match of the PPV is one that doesn't even involve the WWF. Thumbs down. |
|
| Final Score: 5.0 [ Not So Good ] legend |
